Saw strokes

Carving chairs with a chainsaw is an art and a
symbol

You can carve just about anything, whether
ice, soap or stone, even meat and bone. You start with something whole and
begin to cut and craft, in the process removing the totality of a thing to
produce an object that’s somehow more complete, that has a shape and size
people relate to on a deeper level. It’s an art.

John Hurford starts with a stump. Then he
fires up a chainsaw, usually a Husqvarna of about 15 pounds, his favourite on
account of their shape and balanced weight. He chews through the stump, dust
and chips streaming aside, until a stylized chair begins to emerge. And then he
gives it away. That’s the process, the art.

“Just about all the carving I’ve ever done is
for a group or activity or something,” he says. “I don’t carve them for
myself.”

Aside from recent bouts of rain, the sun has
been beaming steady for over a month through the spotty tree canopy of Al
McIntosh Loggers Sports Grounds. With the annual Squamish Days event set for
this weekend, volunteers and local athletes have been milling about the area
with mounting zeal, the hum of heavy equipment gently vibrating the chain link
fencing that encircles the gaming grounds.

That’s where Hurford has been spending most of
his time. He sits by a woodstove just south of the main field, one foot on the
ground while the other, which is broken and heavy with a cast, is propped up on
the crossbar of his crutch. Dressed in an orange T-shirt and blue shorts, the
bespectacled Hurford seems unfazed by the injury, maybe because he sustained it
while volunteering on these very grounds.

Hurford started getting cozy with chainsaws
when he was about 15 years old. Fifteen or so years later, carving was just
something he got into, kind of like how microwaving cold pizza sets some kids
on a path to culinary excellence. He’s shy about his age, but it’s safe to
assume there’s a few decades of experience behind each tug of the starting
handle.

His involvement with Squamish Days has seen
him carve chairs all over the world, from here to Austria. In the ’80s, when
the late Johnny Cash came to Squamish to perform at the event, Hurford and a
buddy carved the man a chair.

“We had a stage that we built on a
semi-trailer,” he remembers. “It was a Friday evening, and Johnny Cash was
doing his thing. We carved the chair for him, and then he invited us into his
trailer, and we went in and talked to him for 15 or 20 minutes. He took the
chair with him. He’s not around anymore, so it’s even more important.”